Kirjahaku

RM Johnson's extraordinary novel is a stirring family portrait that resonates with emotion and wit, as a father faces death--and the three sons he abandoned so many years before. "Mr. Harris, I'm sorry, but you have cancer." Although devastated to learn he has just one year to live, fifty-five-year-old Julius Harris has always known that the day would come when he would pay for walking out on his wife and three children twenty years earlier. Now, with a sudden and passionate determination to make his family whole again, Julius begins trying to find a way back to his sons. Caleb, the youngest, struggling to support a son and make his way in a relentless world, couldn't care less about his own absentee father. Middle son Marcus can't abide even his father's memory, which gets in the way of his committing to the one woman who has turned his life around. And Austin, Julius' eldest child, so adores what he remembers of his father that he's following in his footsteps, abandoning his wife and children just as Julius had done. Inspired by RM Johnson's own fragile family history, The Harris Men is his poignant exploration of the increasing problem of absentee fathers--and of the compromises made by the families they leave behind. As the Harris men grapple with their fears and their choices, Johnson gets to the very heart of what it means to be a man.

At the close of Bishop, Larry Lakes was informed that Van, Robby and Urail, the young men Larry mentored as boys in the church's youth ministry, were charging him with sexual molestation. They plan to take him to court, make public his abuses against them, and sue Larry for all that he has. In Bishop 2, Larry does not take being threatened lightly. He keeps secret from his wife Marian, all the turmoil going on around him, while plotting to take down his accusers before they destroy him. Meanwhile, Marian Lakes deals with drama of her own. Paul Baker, Marian's sexy personal assistant has not slowed his pursuit of her. During a moment of weakness, Marian succumbs to his advances, placing her marriage in immediate jeopardy. Marian eventually finds out about the disturbing charges brought against her husband. She hides her children, fearing they may be in harm's way, then sets out looking for answers. But what she discovers are truths so horrible, so unbelievable, she knows her life, as well as her husband's and children's will never be the same.

After police plant drugs in Bishop Larry Lakes's car, he is arrested and charged with illegal drug possession with intent to distribute. Having no other options, Larry transfers ownership of his new church to Mayor Richard Bonner-the man that orchestrated Larry's arrest-in order to have the charges dismissed and allow Larry's release. Regaining his freedom, Larry realizes he has nothing else. All of his money has been taken to pay off the boys he molested. Larry's wife, Marian, has taken his mansion and sole custody of his children and plans to marry Paul-her one-time personal assistant. As though not insult enough, Mayor Bonner has accomplished his goal of leaving Larry without a church to head, killing his chances of ever preaching again. Once the most powerful, most revered spiritual leader in the south, Larry is now homeless and penniless. He has no church, his name has no value, and his family has been taken. He tells himself suicide would be a more fitting end than what his future now holds. But before he shamefully disappears into obscurity, he plots revenge against Mayor Bonner-the man he once respected, Paul Taylor-who Larry trusted, and Marian-the woman he vowed to love, honor and protect. Larry promises-willing to give his life in the effort-they will pay with all they hold dear, know the pain of having their lives torn apart, and rue the day they ever deceived Bishop Larry Lakes.

Not long ago, when Monica Kenny's husband realized she'd gone through premature menopause and would never give him the children he so desperately wanted, he took a mistress, deceived and divorced her. Monica tried to move on, but was unable, feeling the fool for allowing herself to be so badly abused and mistreated by the man she loved. Unable to look herself in the mirror, Monica was determined to even the score. She needed to hurt Nate in a way in which he would never recover. She needed revenge That would come in the form of stealing from him what he valued most in the world: his son, the boy Monica had recommended they adopt two years ago, in order to save their marriage. Her husband rejected the idea at the time, only to later adopt the infant after his divorce from Monica was finalized. In order to succeed with her plan, Monica must convince a judge the child should be taken, and she will have to paint Nate as an adulterous, unfit parent who provides a hazardous living environment and abuses his child. That man is who Monica truly believes her husband to be, but it will be hard to prove, considering Nate has been acting the model father and has announced he's "changed his ways" and "become a better man". Knowing her husband and the lies he tells, Monica enlists Nate's past mistresses-the only women she believes can help: Daphanie Coleman and Tori Thomas. Monica positions the women to seduce Nate into succumbing to his most primal urges. But when the psychopathic killer, Freddy Ford-a man who has shot both Monica and Nate in the past, and left them for dead-breaks out of a psychiatric institution seeking revenge, the task of rescuing the child Monica loves from the man she hates, becomes more complicated, increasingly impossible and even deadly.

This lucid and balanced introduction for first year engineers and applied mathematicians conveys the clear understanding of the fundamentals and applications of calculus, as a prelude to studying more advanced functions. Short and fundamental diagnostic exercises at the end of each chapter test comprehension before moving to new material.

This text for advanced undergraduates and graduates reading applied mathematics, electrical, mechanical, or control engineering, employs block diagram notation to highlight comparable features of linear differential and difference equations, a unique feature found in no other book. The treatment of transform theory (Laplace transforms and z-transforms) encourages readers to think in terms of transfer functions, i.e. algebra rather than calculus. This contrives short-cuts whereby steady-state and transient solutions are determined from simple operations on the transfer functions.